


Blood

by Firequill



Series: Way Back When [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Future Fic, It does all link up eventually, Post-Canon, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2017-09-27
Packaged: 2019-01-06 07:42:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12206832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Firequill/pseuds/Firequill
Summary: Sequel to "Scent" and Book Two of the story Way Back WhenNow that Derek Hale is out of stasis, Stiles and his friends are starting to piece together some of their questions about what's been happening in Beacon Hills. A series of new disappearances leads them to start an investigation, but the answers they find aren't what they were expecting.





	Blood

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I am back to work on this story! I lost inspiration for a while there but I'm working on Book two. This book is split into three parts by narrator. This first chapter is from Stiles' perspective, and chapter two will come from Scott's. If you haven't read Book one (Scent) I really recommend doing that first - this doesn't make much sense without it!

Stiles stared at the coffee maker on the counter. It was a very old model, one he’d actually had to look up the directions to figure out. It was gurgling out coffee at this point so he wasn’t about to complain too much. After all, it was two in the morning, he had already borrowed his mom’s car without permission, he’d helped dispose of a dead ogre, and he was in an immortal werewolf’s apartment with his two best friends and another werewolf who’d been in stasis for about a hundred years. When measured against all of that, an ancient coffee maker wasn’t a problem as long as it delivered the caffeine.  


“…and that’s how we got you out,” Ellie was saying as he walked into the living room with five coffee mugs balanced on a large plate he’d found. He handed the first mug to Andy, who shot him a grateful look. She was sitting with an ice pack over the scrape on her cheek, which had started to swell on the way back to the apartment.  


“You used fake claws to get into the vault?” Scott asked as Stiles handed out the rest of the coffee. “That shouldn’t have worked.”  


“None of you should have been able to get in there without Malia,” the other werewolf in the room said. Derek, Stiles reminded himself as he handed him coffee.  


“The bracelet Stiles found was Malia’s,” Scott said. “Maybe she did something to the door?”  


“I suppose she could have.” Derek’s eyes lingered on Stiles for a long moment. “That doesn’t explain why the bracelet that opens the door showed up now.”  


“What about this?” Scott pointed to the letter from Derek that had sent them to the vault in the first place. “This didn’t show up until now, and you clearly weren’t in any position to be sending me letters.”  


“I don’t have an answer for that either,” Derek said. “That letter should have gotten to you when I originally put myself in stasis.”  


“You did that to yourself?” Stiles blurted out. Derek looked at him again.  


“Yes, I did,” he said. “But I didn’t expect it to last nearly this long.” He looked down at his coffee and sat silently for a few minutes. Stiles resisted the urge to try and hurry him along by looking over at Andy again. She was watching Derek intently, her eyes narrowed.  


“It all started,” Derek said suddenly, “when the immortality spell hit Scott.” Scott flinched a little but didn’t interrupt. “All of us were looking for some kind of solution right after it happened. We tried a lot of different things, but since we didn’t know what had caused it we didn’t know what we were trying to counter. Before Malia left, the two of us put together a list of all of the different things we’d been dealing with around the time it had happened, thinking we’d eliminate them until we found the cause. That’s why I didn’t worry when Malia left, Scott.”  


“You thought she was just tracking down one of those leads?”  


“Exactly. It was only after Stiles…” Derek hesitated, looking at Stiles and then at Scott as if not sure what he should say.  


“After he died?” Stiles said loudly, trying to break through the awkwardness and instead causing everyone except Derek to immediately find somewhere else to look.  


“After that,” Derek acknowledged. “It seemed like there was more urgency to try and figure out the root cause of the immortality. I had been going to take someone else with me, but Liam was dealing with the death of his parents, Malia was still gone, Kira was helping you, Scott… So, I went after the next group by myself.”  


“Group of what?” Andy asked quietly.  


“There was a group of manticores-” Derek began, but he was interrupted when Scott sat bolt upright and exclaimed in shock.  


“Those took all of us the first time they came! We barely got rid of them at all!” He said indignantly. “Why on earth would you go after them by yourself? I would have come-”  


“I would have had to explain to you why we were going after them,” Derek pointed out. “I figured if anything went seriously wrong, I could use the stasis in the vault to heal and you could find Malia to let you in. I left the letter for you in case I didn’t come back.”  


“I’m guessing things went wrong,” Stiles said dryly. “Hence the stasis.”  


“But I didn’t get the letter,” Scott said slowly. “I looked for you after you vanished, I searched your entire loft. There wasn’t any trace of a letter.”  


“Until it suddenly shows up at your apartment with no explanation all these years later,” Andy said. “At the same time that the bracelet to let us into the vault just happens to end up in the forest where Stiles can find it.”  


“I suppose there’s no chance at all that these are just a bunch of coincidences?” Ellie said hopelessly. “Nobody answer that.”  


“Something definitely seems to be starting,” Scott said quietly, his eyes on Stiles. “I’m just not sure if that’s a good thing or not.”  


“Well whatever it is, we can figure it out another time,” Andy said with a sigh. “It’s late, and I’m exhausted, and if the rest of you aren’t then you should be.”  


“I need to get my mom’s car back,” Stiles said. “Hopefully before she notices.” He stood up and extended a hand to Andy, who used it to haul herself to her feet.  


“Andy,” Scott said as they headed towards the door. “Thanks for helping tonight.” She smiled back at him and waved.  


“Oh, I could sleep for a week,” Ellie yawned, following the other two out the door.  


“Better not. You never know who might try to kiss you to wake up Sleeping Beauty,” Andy said.  


“You spoil everything. Are you giving me a ride home?”  


“Yeah. Stiles, you have your mom’s keys, right?” Stiles felt his pocket and encountered only the lump that was the bracelet. He sighed.  


“Of course not. I’d better go grab them. I’ll see you two later.” He turned and went back up the stairs. He was almost at the door when he heard the soft murmur of voices from inside. He hesitated. Scott had known he was listening in last time, but when both werewolves were tired, maybe… he pulled out his com and tapped into the listening program.  


“…doesn’t remember anything?” Derek was saying.  


“Nothing,” Scott said heavily. “I was so hopeful when I realized it was actually him, too. You know we never finished all the steps-”  


“And you know perfectly well that it shouldn’t have worked without all the steps.”  


“If you can look me in the eye after talking to him and tell me that that isn’t Stiles, Derek…”  


“I’m not saying it isn’t him. I’m saying that if it is him, and I admit that signs point towards that being true, then we have no idea how he got here.”  


“Because we needed another mystery on our hands,” Scott groaned. Stiles decided that he’d heard enough. He turned off the listening program and walked up to the door, giving it a brief tap before opening it and poking his head in.  


“I forgot the car keys,” he said. Scott looked down at the coffee table and spotted them. He stood up and walked over to hand them to Stiles. He smiled hesitantly as he handed them over. Stiles gave him a small smile in return.  


“Thanks.”  


“Drive safe, okay?” Stiles gave him a small salute and turned and headed back down the stairs. He had a lot to think about, but it could all wait until tomorrow. Right now what he needed most of all was sleep.

 

“Do I even want to know where you were with my car last night?” Mrs. Stilinski asked conversationally when Stiles stumbled downstairs in the morning. He winced, reaching for a mug for coffee.  


“I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t notice.”  


“Well, I noticed.” His mom had her arms crossed over her chest and did not look happy. “Stiles, you know that you’re supposed to ask before you take the car.”  


“It was kind of an emergency.”  


“What kind of emergency?”  


“Just… stuff.” Stiles took a drink of coffee. How on earth was he supposed to explain this to his mom, of all people?  


“Stuff.” She sighed. “Stiles, I’m worried about you. You’ve been very on edge lately. If you’ve gotten involved in something you shouldn’t be…”  


“It’s not that,” he said, not altogether sure that it was true. “I mean, it’s definitely not whatever you’re thinking.” That at least was absolutely true. There’s no way his mom would be able to come anywhere near to the truth.  


“Well then, what Stiles?” Her foot tapped against the floor and Stiles realized he wasn’t going to be able to get out of this one with evasions. He thought as fast as his sleep deprived brain would let him.  


“I was with Andy last night. She was with other friends, and she got hurt, and she needed help, so I went. Ellie was there too.”  


“And I suppose the break in at the school last night had nothing to do with you?” Crap. Stiles hoped he hadn’t visibly winced.  


“Mom, would I do something like that?”  


“Yes.” She sighed and uncrossed her arms. “I’m not sure Andy would though, and I’m positive Ellie wouldn’t. All right, I can tell you’re exhausted and the car is at least not damaged, so you’re off the hook for now. But-” She raised a finger. “You are grounded from terri-cross practices for the next week. I want you straight home, and I’ll know if you’re not.”  


“Awww, mom!”  


“Next time it’ll be more than that,” she said. “All right, lecture over. I’m going to work. Bye sweetie.” She kissed him on the cheek and left. Stiles collapsed into one of the kitchen chairs, staring at the ceiling. His com ringing distracted him. He answered it without looking to see who it was.  


“Yeah?”  


“Are you in as much trouble as I am?” Andy’s voice asked. He looked up to see her face on the com screen. The scrape on her cheek was a vibrant red this morning.  


“I’ve got to come straight home from school for the next week,” he said. “You?”  


“No car for a month,” she said. “What did you tell your mom?”  


“I said Ellie and I went to go help you because you got hurt with other friends. I’m lucky, she had work this morning and apparently I look as awful as I feel so she went easy on me.”  


“I told dad that I was out with you and Ellie for a walk and that I got the scrape in the forest,” she said. “So not really a lie? He wasn’t convinced though.”  


“Staying out past two will do that,” Stiles said. “So now what?”  


“I’d say I’d come meet you at your place, but honestly I’m too tired,” Andy said. “Maybe we can talk tomorrow at school.”  


“Works for me. Get some rest, you deserve it.”  


“You too. Later Stiles.” She hung up. Stiles finished his coffee and poured a second cup. Halfway through his third, he was starting to feel human again and grabbed a banana to eat. He was trying to decide if a fourth cup of coffee was likely to make his heart rate climb through the roof when someone knocked on the door. Stiles continued staring at the coffee maker, trying to ignore the noise. When it didn’t stop he sighed and put his mug on the counter before he walked over and clicked on the screen that showed was on the porch. His eyes almost popped out of his head when he saw Derek standing there, arms crossed. He threw the door open.  


“What are you doing here?” he asked. Derek looked at him and raised his eyebrows. Stiles considered all the reasons he might be giving him that look, remembered he was still wearing his pajamas, and decided that more coffee was worth the risk of a heart attack.  


“I came to see you,” the werewolf replied. “I asked Scott where you lived.”  


“Oh.” Stiles considered what would happen if he shut the door in Derek’s face. It wasn’t a good mental picture. “Uh. Come in then, I guess.” He stepped aside so Derek could come in and shut the door. “Just give me a minute.” Stiles ran upstairs and hastily threw on some jeans and a sweatshirt before running his fingers through his hair and hurtling back downstairs. Derek was standing in the living room, looking at a picture of Stiles and his mom.  


“Sorry,” Stiles said. “I woke up kind of late today and I wasn’t really expecting anyone.”  


“I’d have been surprised if you hadn’t slept in.” Derek looked at him. “Do you have that bracelet here somewhere?”  


“The- oh. Yeah. It’s upstairs, do you want me to get it?”  


“No, I don’t need to see it right now. Just make sure that you keep it safe. I’m not sure what Malia did to it, but it could be important later.” Derek sat down on the couch and gestured for Stiles to sit across from him. Stiles hesitantly perched on a chair. He wasn’t sure what Derek could want from him, unless he hadn’t gotten away with his eavesdropping after all last night and was about to get a lecture. He braced himself.  


“First of all,” Derek said, “I should say thank you for getting me out of stasis last night.”  


“Oh, that?” Stiles relaxed a little. “That wasn’t a huge deal. You kind of made up for it by helping get rid of that ogre.”  


“Maybe so.” Derek folded his hands in front of him. “Look, Stiles, I’m going to be blunt. You’ve talked to Scott about who you are, right?” Stiles felt his shoulders tensing and tried to force them not to rise up towards his ears.  


“If you mean about the reincarnation thing-”  


“I do.”  


“Then yes.” Stiles swallowed hard. “I’d really rather not talk about it.” He twisted his fingers together, trying to ignore the queasiness in his stomach. It was either too much coffee, not enough food, or the mention of his past life. Stiles was willing to put money on a combination of all three.  
“I don’t think ignoring it is a choice you have right now.” Derek shook his head. “Back when I first met Scott, he was a new werewolf. He didn’t trust me. In hindsight, maybe I can’t blame him. I watched him for quite a while though and Scott made it through one seemingly impossible situation after another. There were a lot of things that happened to him that even a more experienced werewolf wouldn’t have been able to handle. More often than not, it was one person who got Scott through the worst of things.” Derek raised his eyebrows expectantly. Stiles tried glaring back and quickly realized that this was a stare down he was not going to win.  


“His Stiles,” Stiles said. Derek shook his head.  


“Not some other Stiles,” he said. “You.” Stiles pressed his lips together in an effort not to blurt out the first thing that came into his head. He only partially succeeded.  


“Look, I’m not-”  


“Whether you acknowledge it or not, you are the same person,” Derek interrupted. “Scott’s sure of it, and if anyone would know it’s him. It doesn’t matter at this point if you want to be the Stiles of back then or not. You are. If something new really is starting, and someone is starting to pull the strings, then that means Scott is going to be back in the thick of things. If there’s one person Scott really needs it’s you.”  


“That’s great and all,” Stiles snapped, any last attempts at self-control vanishing, “but in case you’ve forgotten, I don’t remember a single thing about any of that.” Derek stayed infuriatingly calm.  


“I don’t think it matters. Whatever you do or don’t remember Scott is going to need you. He already needs you. Whatever issues you’re working through you need to work through them fast, because without you I’m not sure Scott’s going to be able to handle whatever’s coming our way.” Stiles glared at the werewolf. His face was flushed hot and his fingers were twined together so tightly that they were starting to go a little numb. What Derek was saying was making him angry, but also obscurely ashamed of himself.  


“Who are you to tell me any of this?” He demanded.  


“Someone who cares about what happens to Scott,” Derek said. “And believe it or not, someone who thinks that we’re going to need your brain on our side.” He stood up. “Think about it, Stiles. I have a feeling it’s going to be important.” Stiles stayed seated, practically vibrating with emotion as Derek walked out of the room and the front door opened and closed.  


“I haven’t had enough coffee for this,” he muttered to himself after a few minutes trying to process what was going through his head. He was in the middle of pouring another cup when his com rang again. This time it was Ellie.  


“How are you feeling this morning?” She asked. Stiles held up his mug.  


“This is my fourth cup,” he said dryly. “So whatever that tells you. How about you?”  


“Tired, but mostly okay,” Ellie said. “I got my mom’s jewelry back into place all right. They didn’t seem to notice how late I was out. Andy told me that you’re grounded though.”  


“Yeah, but it’s not a huge deal,” Stiles said. “I know my mom’s schedule. All I really have to do is make sure that I scan my com at the front door after school every day and actually be home when she gets home.”  


“Why does none of that surprise me?” Ellie sighed. “Anything from Scott so far today?”  


“Scott, no. The grumpy one, yes.” Stiles took a long drink of coffee in an attempt to cover up whatever else he might find himself saying about his early morning visit. His stomach turned over and he made a mental note to eat something else as soon as this call was over. Ellie had been thinking, a frown on her face.  


“Derek? Why did you hear from him?” Stiles waved a hand.  


“He more or less stopped by to say thanks for getting him out last night.”  


“Well that’s nice of him.” Ellie said. Stiles suppressed a snide comment as she continued. “I should probably actually do some homework before school tomorrow. I just wanted to check in.”  


“Homework is overrated,” Stiles said.  


“Maybe so, but if I want to go to a good college I still need to do it. Later Stiles.” The call ended. Stiles sighed and leaned his elbows on the kitchen counter. His thoughts drifted back to the conversation with Derek. Really, it had been less a conversation and more a lecture. It was almost enough to make him regret letting the werewolf out in the first place. The image of the dead ogre flashed through his mind. He grimaced. All right, definitely just almost.  


After the fourth cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal, Stiles glanced at the clock. His mom wouldn’t be home for another three hours, maybe more if there was some kind of emergency. He had his own homework to do, but he didn’t feel like doing it. He was going to get out of the house. Stiles went upstairs and switched out the pajama shirt he was still wearing under his sweatshirt with a blue T-shirt and threw a plaid shirt on over that. He slid his shoes on and made sure he had his com. Then he considered. If he went out the door his mom would know and have questions. Stiles threw his window open and reached out for the branch hanging there. He was partway down the tree when he heard someone walking towards him on the sidewalk. He froze.  


“I would ask what you’re doing, but I think I can probably guess,” an amused voice said. Stiles looked down and saw Scott looking up at him, a smile on his face.  


“I’m being smart, that’s what,” Stiles retorted. He finished climbing down and jumped to the ground, avoiding sharp rocks this time.  


“I thought you were grounded,” Scott commented, stuffing his hands in his pockets.  


“Being grounded is for the unimaginative,” Stiles said. He paused. “Wait, how’d you know that?”  


“I stopped by to check on Andy. That girl is seriously good with those knives.” Scott shook his head. “I’m glad she’s not a hunter, let’s just say that.” Stiles pushed aside a mental image of Andy in camouflage stalking a deer. It was highly unlikely that was what Scott was talking about.  


“Hunter? What kind of hunter?” His brain leapt to a sudden conclusion. “Wait, as in werewolf hunter?” Scott nodded an affirmative.  


“They do exist, and they can be pretty nasty.” Scott shrugged. “Let’s just say that you wouldn’t want to meet most of them in a dark alley. Anyway, I came by to make sure you were okay.”  


“I think that makes pretty much everyone today then. You all must think I’m pretty fragile,” Stiles said, only halfway joking. Scott looked a little concerned. Stiles resisted the urge to scream. “Look, I’m fine. Any more coffee and I might just start hearing colors, but really. I’m fine.” Scott’s shoulders relaxed a little.  


“Any particular reason you’re climbing out your window?” He wanted to know. “Since you’re grounded and all.”  


“I just needed to get out of the house.” Stiles hesitated, not sure exactly what to say. “I kind of have a lot to think about.” He scratched an itch on his shoulder, not looking directly at the werewolf.  


“You’re not the only one,” Scott said. He hesitated. “Anything you want to talk about? I could listen if you wanted.” Stiles briefly imagined mentioning his conversation with Derek about the past. He was hit with a sudden certainty that Derek wouldn’t be happy if he did. He probably wouldn’t actually kill Stiles, but the werewolf could probably think of all kinds of imaginative things to do short of that.  


“Not really,” he said. He glanced over as Scott’s face fell. Stiles paused, suddenly really looking at Scott. The alpha had circles under his eyes. He was looking down now, and Stiles was struck with how tired he looked. Had Scott not been sleeping or something? Maybe Derek hadn’t been that far off about Scott needing someone, if only to tell him to get some rest.  


“What about you?” he said. Scott looked surprised. Stiles didn’t blame him. He was a little surprised that he’d said that himself.  


“What about me?” The werewolf asked.  


“I don’t know, is there anything you want to talk about?” Stiles felt himself start to get embarrassed and found words spilling out of his mouth before his brain could catch up with them. “Not that you have to talk to me about them or anything, but you look pretty worn out still, and a lot happened yesterday, and if you did want to talk I was thinking about taking a walk in the forest. You know, as long as there aren’t any more ogres in it.” Scott smiled crookedly.  


“I think all the ogres are gone for now,” he said. “Is that an invitation to join you on that walk?”  


“Only if you want it to be,” Stiles said. “You probably have way better things to do anyway.” He looked away, trying to pretend indifference. A small part of his brain informed him in no uncertain terms that he was doing a really bad job. Luckily that didn’t seem to impact Scott’s response.  


“Not really. Derek said he was going down into the vault to see if there’s any clues about what Malia might have done down there, so he’s not around, and in case you didn’t notice I don’t exactly know a lot of people around here anymore.” Scott ran a hand through his hair. Stiles decided to take that as a yes and started walking down the sidewalk. Scott wasn’t far behind.  


“What all have you been doing the past few decades?” Stiles asked, thinking out loud. “You’re not caught up on the technology, you don’t know a lot of people, clearly you haven’t been out and about that much, but I doubt you’ve been living under a rock.”  


“There really didn’t seem to be much point in keeping up with things,” Scott said. “It would be hard to explain why I wasn’t aging for one thing. After a while all I was doing was leaving the apartment to find and get rid of whatever monsters were around and when they were gone I was back to being in the apartment again. It was a cycle, really.”  


“That sounds…” Stiles considered. “Really sad and kind of strange, actually.”  


“It’s not like there was no one at all I could talk to,” Scott protested. “There’s Minako, who’s been running the apartment complex for quite a while. Sometimes there are other werewolves who know about me and pass through town, and I talk to them.”  


“Still,” Stiles said skeptically. “No wonder you were so terrible at dealing with people when you first showed up at school.” Scott frowned  


“I wasn’t that bad!” He hesitated. “Was I?”  


“Scott, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but you were bad,” Stiles said as they reached the edge of the trees. “I mean, you spent hours on end just staring at me. Not exactly the best way to get to know someone.”  


“Yeah, but-”  


“You were creepily following me through the woods, Scott.” The werewolf’s cheeks were steadily turning red.  


“I just-”  


“Are you seriously going to try to claim that any of that was even remotely normal?” Stiles raised his eyebrows. Scott muttered under his breath for a moment before giving in.  


“Okay, so maybe not. I just needed some practice.” He vaulted himself over a large rock sitting in their way with an ease that made Stiles glare at him.  


“It’s not fair that I have to do all the stupid clambering over things when you can just use your crazy wolfy powers.” Stiles considered taking a running start at the rock and jumping, but it didn’t take the small voice of reason in his brain to realize that that was a dumb idea even for him.  


“Hey, it’s not like I asked for any powers,” Scott said as he watched Stiles hoist himself over the rock. Stiles was obscurely grateful that there wasn’t any comment when he almost tumbled headfirst over it. “They were something I wanted to get rid of for quite a while actually,” Scott continued as they walked on. “Just ask Derek.”  


“Really? Why would you want to get rid of them? Is that even possible?” Stiles considered for a moment. “Actually, what even happened when you first got bit? You never really said.”  


“Didn’t I?’ Scott shook his head. “Let’s just say it was really weird, really disorienting, and I was definitely not so good at handling my ‘wolfy powers’ at first.” Stiles stared at Scott, who maddeningly just kept walking without saying anything else.  


“Come on, you can’t just leave it there! What happened?” Scott rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. As they walked through the woods he told Stiles the story of how he’d been bit out in these same woods and how he’d had absolutely no idea what was happening to him at first. Stiles found himself laughing at descriptions of the crazy situations that Scott had found himself in, trying to figure out how to control his new abilities and dating the daughter of a werewolf hunter.  


“So that’s why you’re not fond of hunters?”  


“In part.” Scott shrugged. “Some of them turned out to be all right in the end. When you’re the one they’re after things can get pretty intense though.”  


“And if your girlfriend was a hunter-”  


“Oh, she wasn’t, not at that point. Allison…” Scott trailed off, staring into the distance with a sudden change in mood. “Allison was different.” Stiles had a feeling he’d just stepped on a landmine and searched his mind for a change of topic. He seized on the first thought that seemed somewhat coherent.  


“What about Derek? You said at one point that he was a mentor, but it doesn’t sound like you trusted him at all.”  


“I definitely didn’t know what to think of him,” Scott admitted, turning his gaze back to Stiles. “Things with Derek took a while to get to a place where he was really helping me out. If you want to talk about people who were bad at dealing with others, Derek’s your guy.”  


“I’m not sure he’s spectacular at it now either,” Stiles muttered, the resentment from that morning coming back. Scott laughed.  


“Then let’s just say he’s improved and let you imagine the rest.” Stiles stared at him, his mouth dropping open.  


“You’re kidding.”  


“Not at all.” Scott stretched his arms over his head, looking up at the sun streaming through the trees. “Hang on, what time is it? When do you need to be back at your place anyway? Being grounded and all.” Stiles blinked at the sudden change in topic and fumbled in his pocket for his com.  


“Uhhh… crud, pretty soon actually.” Stiles wrinkled his nose at the time displayed on his com and shoved it back in his pocket. “I guess I need to get back through my window and at least pretend I’ve been doing my homework.”  


“Come on then. This way’s shorter.” Scott led the way through the trees, Stiles trailing behind. They didn’t talk much on the way back until they were just a few blocks away from Stiles’ house and Scott spoke up.  


“Thanks for letting me tag along and talk your ear off.”  


“Hey, I had fun,” Stiles said without thinking. Scott looked back at him.  


“Really?” Stiles scratched the back of his neck self-consciously.  


“I mean, it was much nicer to be walking with you instead of having you following me, so there’s that,” he said. He was astonished that he’d actually meant it. Somehow, spending time with Scott had turned out to be something he enjoyed. He wasn’t quite ready to admit that to anyone else though. Scott looked uncertain.  


“If you, uh, ever want to hang out… I mean, you’re always welcome to just show up at my place without warning. I’m usually there.” He shifted his weight self-consciously. Stiles, watching a flush creep across the alpha’s cheeks, realized that what he’d said earlier was true. Scott just wasn’t much good at dealing with people anymore. It was more than likely that he was just out of practice, but that wasn’t exactly something Stiles could hold against him. Who knew what kind of person Stiles would be if he’d had to spend that amount of time without any close friends.  


“I might just take you up on that,” he said. He reflected as he climbed back up the tree that if Scott had smiled any wider, the top of his head might just have fallen off.

Stiles was amazed when being grounded turned out to be something of a relief. He did sneak out a couple of times for the principle of the thing, but most of what he was doing was research anyway and that didn’t require him to go anywhere at all. The more he thought about it, the more he was realizing that if supernatural creatures were going to be invading Beacon Hills on a semi-regular basis that he needed more knowledge. He really didn’t have much else to offer. Andy, now that she was involved, was spending more time working out and honing her fighting skills. Her knife throwing was scarily accurate already, and she told Stiles that she’d even found an old crossbow somewhere that she was practicing with now. Ellie was quizzing Scott about werewolves in general every chance she got, and Stiles suspected that she was going over to his apartment to get what she could from Derek as well. With her brains, Stiles suspected that it wouldn’t be long until she knew more about what the werewolves could do then they did. That left knowledge about what they were going to be facing off against, and Stiles planned on becoming an expert.  


The problem, he reflected one night, was that a lot of the information on was out there was, to put it bluntly, utter crap. There were pages about werewolves claiming that they were totally normal humans except on the night of the full moon and Stiles already knew that wasn’t true. It made him question a lot of the information he was finding on other types of creatures. For example, some of what he’d read about wendigos said that they were twelve feet tall, but other sources said that they were evil spirits that only possessed people who’d eaten human flesh, which meant that they’d just look like a normal person most of the time, and there seemed to be a lot of disagreement over just what their abilities and weaknesses really were. What he needed was a reliable source, but there really wasn’t any way to tell which of the myths were reliable. Ellie was lucky. All she wanted was information on werewolves, and she had Scott and Derek right there to get information from. It was possible that they had some ideas about different monsters, but even if Scott had been alive for over a century there were limits to what he’d know.  


All of this was running through Stiles’ head one night as he tried to read up on merpeople. His frustration was steadily growing as he read conflicting reports and myths that couldn’t seem to make up their minds. His com deciding to crash was the last straw. Stiles smacked his hand down on his desk in a burst of anger and then snatched his hand back with a yelp of pain. The silver bracelet he’d accidentally hit sat there innocently. Stiles glared at it as he massaged his smarting palm. For being related to the werewolf situation, the bracelet was proving incredibly useless. The stupid thing was only good for getting into that vault, and how was that supposed to help with his research? Stiles froze, an idea suddenly occurring to him.

Saturday morning, the door to Scott's apartment opened to reveal a very surprised looking alpha werewolf. He blinked at Stiles, who had coffee in one hand and a determined expression on his face. Scott was wearing a white tank top and pajama pants. Combined with what looked like bed head, Stiles was willing to bet that the werewolf had been asleep when Stiles had arrived.  


"Hey," Scott finally managed. "I wasn't expecting..."  


"I know," Stiles said. "Can I come in?"  


"Uh. Sure." Scott stood aside and Stiles marched in. On the couch was a pile of neatly folded blankets, reminding Stiles that there was more than one person currently living in the apartment. He was suddenly apprehensive.  


"Where's Derek?" He asked, hoping that the folded blankets meant he wasn’t there.  


"He went for a run, I think. He does that a lot in the mornings lately." Scott ran a hand through his hair. "Did you need him for something? I can probably find him if you do."  


“No!” Stiles blurted. Scott looked startled, and Stiles tried again. “I mean, no. Thanks.” Stiles stared at the blankets for a moment. “Is he moving in with you permanently?”  


“Minako’s going to find him another apartment in the building,” Scott said. He sat in a chair and raised his eyebrows at Stiles expectantly. Stiles stared at him for a moment before forcing his brain away from the issue of Derek and back towards why he was there.  


“Right.” He set his coffee down on the table and looked intently at Scott. “What exactly is that vault?” Scott looked startled.  


“The Hale Vault?” He asked. Stiles resisted the urge to roll his eyes.  


“Unless there’s some other weird werewolf vault I don’t know about, yes that one.”  


“I mean, it’s basically just what it looks like. It’s a vault, and it’s full of artifacts and things that the Hales have saved over the years.” Scott shrugged, clearly confused. “I don’t know what all’s in there, really. You’d have to ask Derek.”  


“I’m pretty sure I saw books in there,” Stiles said, coming to his point. “And any books in a werewolf’s collection would have to be pretty accurate, right?” This clearly did not help clear matters up for Scott, who was still looking decidedly lost.  


“I mean, it probably depends on the subject. Why?”  


“I don’t know!” Stiles rubbed a hand over his hair, pacing back and forth to try and release some of his nervous energy. “It just feels like if we’re going to be dealing with all kinds of weird things, that we should have some information about those things, and I don’t have that information, and…” he trailed off, slowly coming to a stop in his pacing. Scott was no longer looking confused, and instead was watching him with a goofy grin spread across his face. “What?”  


“You said we.” Scott smiled even wider, which Stiles hadn’t thought was possible. “Does that mean you’re done being angry at me?”  


“Wha- does it matter?” Stiles said, throwing his hands up into the air. “Look, apparently I’m neck deep in this whether I like it or not, okay? Can you at least try to be helpful here?”  


“Right, right, sorry.” Scott tried to look serious and failed miserably. “So you want to see what kind of books there are in the vault, is that it?”  


“Yes!” Stiles snapped, throttling the urge to point out that this was the most obvious thing in the universe with difficulty.  


“All right, all right, no need to shout.” Scott stood up. “But you’ve got to promise to be careful. I really don’t know what all is in there and I don’t want you getting hurt.”  


“I’m pretty sure a book isn’t going to hurt me,” Stiles said, crossing his arms. Scott looked dubious.  


“You have no idea. Let me get dressed.” As Scott headed out of the room, Stiles sat down and picked his coffee back up. He looked around the room as he took a sip. The furniture was still worn looking and mismatched, but the whole room was surprisingly clean. Apart from the few signs that Derek had been staying in the room, it almost looked unlived in. The few signs of whose space it was were picture frames on the few tables. There was the one Stiles had noticed the first time he was there, of Scott and the woman who looked like him. There was another that showed the werewolf standing by a woman with red hair wearing a wedding dress and smiling. Leaning closer to take a closer look at that one, Stiles realized that there was another frame behind it that had fallen over. He picked it up and glanced at it, then froze. His own face was looking out of the picture at him. He and Scott each had an arm around the other’s shoulders and were beaming at the camera. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Stiles didn’t own the red sweatshirt he was wearing in the picture, he could have believed it had been taken a week ago.  


“Okay, I’m ready. Did you bring the bracelet?” As Scott walked back into the room Stiles jumped to his feet and hastily shoved the picture back on the table, turning his back to it and attempting a bright smile. Scott looked at him and raised his eyebrows. “Are you okay?”  


“Yeah, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be fine?”  


“You’re just acting a little jumpy this morning,” Scott said. Stiles shrugged, trying to look casual even though his heart was pounding. Scott just looked at him.  


“It’s probably just too much caffeine or something,” Stiles said. “Happens all the time.”  


“Okay, if you say so.” Scott didn’t look convinced. “You didn’t answer my question.”  


“Question?”  


“The bracelet?”  


“Oh right!” Stiles dug in his pocket for a moment and then held it up for Scott’s inspection.  


“So how are we going to get there?” Scott asked. “I usually just run… wait a minute, how did you get here?”  


“I walked.”  


“You- Stiles, your house is like six miles away from here!”  


“Well what else was I supposed to do? I’ve been saving for a car, but I’m still too broke to get one and we don’t have teleporters in Beacon Hills!”  


“Teleporters are a thing?” Scott’s voice was full of disbelief. Stiles put his hands over his face.  


“Yes, Scott, teleporters are a thing. I seriously need to give you a crash course on the future. In the meantime, since we don’t have any other way of getting there, we need to start walking.”  


“Actually…” Stiles looked up. A smile was spreading across Scott’s face. “If you’re up for it I think I have a better idea.” He led the way out the door and down the stairs, trailing a confused Stiles in his wake. Behind the building was a small shed with red paint flaking off of it. He reached up and unlatched the door. Stiles was about to ask what on earth was going on when Scott opened the door. Stiles’ mouth dropped open.  


“Is that…”  


“I’ve had it since I was in high school. You know, the first time.” Scott walked over and ran a hand over the motorcycle that was sitting inside the shed. “It’s actually in pretty good repair. I needed something to do with my hands a lot, and maintaining it worked surprisingly well to keep my mind off things.”  


“These things were discontinued ages ago though,” Stiles said, walking around it reverentially.  


“I’ve kind of been around for ages,” Scott pointed out as Stiles examined the wheels.  


“Yeah, but after hoverbikes came out you couldn’t find one of these anywhere anymore. My dad wanted one when I was little but they were super expensive and way more dangerous than anything else that was on the market.”  


“That’s what helmets are for.” Scott picked one up off a shelf on the side of the shed. “If you’re interested… I mean, it’s definitely faster than walking.” He held the helmet out towards Stiles, who stared at it.  


“You mean… you want to drive this to the school?” Stiles felt a thrill of excitement.  


“Only if you’re okay with it,” Scott said hastily. “We don’t have to, I just thought…” Stiles took the helmet from his hands, not about to let the opportunity to ride the motorcycle slip through his fingers just because of Scott’s awkwardness.  


“Do you even realize how jealous everyone at school is going to be when they realize you have one of these?” He asked. “I mean, Mark is practically going to explode, and if he finds out that you let me ride it with you he’s going to cry or something.” He grinned at Scott, who was still looking uncertain.  


“So… is that a yes?”  


“Heck yes it is. Let’s do this.”

Stiles, clutching the back of Scott’s jacket, was beginning to regret his earlier decision. Not that the motorcycle wasn’t cool. It was one of the coolest things he’d seen in a really long time. Beacon Hills wasn’t always up on the latest technology, but even so no one else in town had anything like Scott’s bike. Stiles was now wondering if there was a reason for that. This thing was fast, and loud, and even though Scott assured him that he totally knew what he was doing, Stiles was a little freaked out. He’d only been on a hoverbike once, but those were a much smoother ride. As Scott swerved around a corner, Stiles decided that the scientists who had invented the newer form of transportation had been onto something. He was just wondering what kind of damage would happen if he fell off when the motorcycle finally stopped.  


“What did you think?” Scott asked. Stiles carefully forced his fingers to let their death grip on Scott’s jacket go. He slid off the back of the seat and took a moment to make sure his legs weren’t going to spontaneously collapse under him.  


“That is definitely unique,” he managed to get out. Scott, just getting off, looked back at him.  


“You didn’t like it?”  


“It’s very… fast,” Stiles said, getting his helmet off with shaking fingers. Scott took his own off, his hair sticking out in several directions.  


“I can teach you how to drive it if you-” he began.  


“No!” Stiles held up his hands. “No, I think I’m okay. Saving for a car, remember?”  


“Right.” Scott took the helmet from Stiles and hung both it and his own on the handlebars. “I have no idea what kind of cars are even on the market anymore.”  


“Well, the same technology that they use on hoverbikes can be used in cars,” Stiles said, taking a few shaky steps towards the building. He took heart from the fact that they no longer seemed to be made entirely out of jelly. “They’re not very common in general, though, because they take a lot of power. Around here you won’t see any.”  


“Why not?” Scott started walking next to Stiles. “You mentioned earlier there’s no teleporters here either like they’re a common thing somewhere else.”  


“Pretty much anywhere else,” Stiles said. “I don’t know why but for some reason we don’t get a lot of the brand new technology around here. Pretty much the only thing that’s up to speed is coms, and even then there’s advances that I’ve read about online that we just don’t have here.”  


“Is that why you modify your own?”  


“One of the reasons.” Stiles spotted an open window. “Come on, we can get in this way.” The two climbed through the window. Stiles and his still shaky legs needed a couple of attempts to get through it, but he flat out refused to let Scott give him a boost. Once inside, he took a minute to pull himself together before they walked down to the vault door. When they got there, Stiles slid the bracelet charm into its niche and then looked at Scott expectantly. The werewolf hesitated.  


“You did say that you were going to be careful, right?” Stiles blinked, confused.  


“Why are you so worried about it? Anything I set off isn’t going to hurt you, you’re an immortal werewolf for crying out loud.”  


“It’s not me I’m worried about!” Scott snapped. “I don’t want you getting hurt, okay?” Stiles swallowed an angry retort. Unless he was willing to go find Derek, or get Ellie to borrow the claw rings from her mom again, he needed Scott for this. There was no point in getting in an argument with him now.  


“Fine, I’ll be careful,” he said, unable to resist rolling his eyes. “Now can we please get on with this?” Scott didn’t look like he totally believed Stiles, but he put his claws in the round grate and twisted. The doors opened. Stiles snatched up the bracelet and went in.  


Now that Derek was free, the stasis unit he’d been in was just a silver circle on the floor. Stiles avoided that and headed towards a shelf that looked like it was full of books. Brushing the dust off of the spines, he sneezed. It was obvious that no one had used these books for a long time. Leaning closer, Stiles was able to dismiss several of the books without much thought. They were photo albums, and that didn’t interest him. Some of the others, upon inspection, appeared to be some kind of spell books. They were full of rituals and recipes, with interesting ingredients such as Fly Agaric and Agrimony. Stiles made a mental note to take a look at them later. They were interesting, but not exactly what he was looking for. Some of the books looked like journals. A brief look through them showed that they had been written by previous members of the Hale family. Stiles left those too, though he did think that Ellie would find them interesting.  


After an hour of looking through the whole shelf, Stiles sat back on his heels in frustration. The books here were interesting, and certainly not things that could be found anywhere else, but none of them were exactly what he needed. He’d been hoping for something specifically about different sorts of creatures that might show up in Beacon Hills. Stiles looked back into the rest of the vault and was surprised when he saw that Scott was still there. The alpha was sitting on the floor, looking through a notebook with an odd expression on his face. Stiles was heading towards him when he spotted another book, lying open on a podium. It was the same one Andy had been so fascinated by the first time they were in the vault, but Stiles had somehow forgotten all about it. He went over and started paging through.  


Immediately, Stiles felt a thrill of excitement. This was exactly what he’d been looking for. The pages showed pictures and diagrams of various creatures with titles telling what each one was of. There were paragraphs of writing, some in English, some not, telling about different monsters and their appearances, characteristics, and in some cases weaknesses. Fascinated, Stiles closed the book and looked at the front cover. It was leather, with some kind of a crest stamped into it.  


“Nous chassons ceux qui nous chassent,” Stiles muttered under his breath, carefully sounding out the words as he ran his finger over them.  


“We hunt those who hunt us,” Scott said behind him. Stiles turned around, startled.  


“You know French?”  


“Not really,” Scott said with a shrug. “It was the code of a family of hunters I knew. ‘We hunt those who hunt us’. They put that book together.”  


“Oh.” Stiles looked back at the cover, running his fingers over the crest again. “That seems like a pretty violent sort of code.”  


“They did change it, eventually,” Scott said. “The code I mean. The book was already made though, so they never made it a new cover.”  


“They?” Stiles asked.  


“The Argents,” Scott said. “They were… friends of mine.” He looked away. Stiles looked back at the book. He wondered if it had something to do with the hunter that Scott had mentioned dating before.  


“Can I take this for a bit?” he asked. “Not permanently, I think I’ll be able to make a digital copy in a day or two.”  


“Huh?” Scott looked back at Stiles and the book. “Oh, yeah. Sure. I don’t think Derek will mind too much. Actually, I’m not even sure why the Argent Bestiary is in here in the first place.” He hesitated, looking down at the notebook that was still in his hands. “If you’re going to take that you might want this too.” He held it out. Stiles took it and opened it. Each page had the name of a supernatural creature at the top and handwritten notes underneath. They were written a bit haphazardly, with bullet points crammed in the margins and arrows drawn to connect things, but the more Stiles looked the more he was impressed by how thorough they were.  


“Dude, this is awesome!” he said. “Who wrote this, the same people as the book?” Scott’s face fell.  


“Actually,” he said quietly, “You wrote that. The original you, I mean. It was your research, to add on to what was already in the Bestiary.” He gestured limply at the book. Stiles looked at him and then down at the notebook in his hands, feeling like a pit had opened up in his stomach. The original him? Like he was some kind of carbon copy who just couldn’t measure up or something? Stiles was surprised to feel a spurt of anger. His hands tightened on the notebook. Maybe he didn’t need this after all. If the so-called original Stiles could put it together, so could he. Then again, it would be stupid to throw away such a good resource when it was already there in front of him. The silence in the vault was starting to become awkward and Stiles sought for something to say that didn’t sound stupidly jealous. His eyes fell on the book – the Bestiary, Scott had called it.  


“What did they change it to?” Scott looked back up at him, startled.  


“What did who change?”  


“The people who wrote this. Their code or whatever. What did they change it to?” Stiles picked the book up and waved it vaguely in the air.  


“Oh. ‘Nous protégeons ceux qui ne peuvent pas se protéger eux-mêmes.’ We protect those who cannot protect themselves.”

The Bestiary, Stiles discovered once he had walked home and closeted himself in his room with it, was full of all the kinds of information he had hoped it would be. At first he was hesitant to reference the notebook that Scott had given him, but after he found himself confused on a couple of points about kanima and discovered that the notebook had all the information he could possibly want about them, he gave in and started using it. He was reading some notes about banshees when there was a tap on his doorframe. Stiles turned to see his mom standing there. She raised her eyebrows at him.  


“You seem pretty involved in that. Homework?”  


“This?” Stiles shifted his body in his desk chair so that she couldn’t clearly see what he’d been reading about. “Just, uh, a book I borrowed. No big deal.”  


“Considering that I haven’t seen you with a book that wasn’t on your com in at least a year, I’d say that’s a deal.” Mrs. Stilinski smiled. “At the very least you were interested enough that you didn’t hear me come in.”  


“Sometimes a guy just needs to be reading a book, all right?” Stiles said. His stomach grumbled, loudly enough that he was pretty sure his mom could hear it. She confirmed this by laughing.  


“And sometimes you read so much you forget to eat dinner?” Stiles glanced out the window and was surprised to see that it was getting dark outside. He decided it was probably not in his best interests to mention that he hadn’t exactly had lunch either.  


“I can make something,” he offered. “You probably had a long day.”  


“I also stopped and grabbed a pizza on my way home,” his mom said. “Today was long, but it wasn’t hard. The wind farm produced more than we expected, so it wasn’t an issue that there was less solar output than usual.” She stepped out the door. Stiles quickly shoved the Bestiary and the notebook into a drawer in his desk and followed her.  


“So why the pizza, because it was a good day?”  


“Since when do we need a reason for pizza?” Mrs. Stilinski smiled at Stiles as they both headed down the stairs and into the kitchen. “Sometimes it’s nice to just do something without needing a reason.”  


“Yeah, but it costs more if we eat out all the time-”  


“Stiles.” His mom, who was grabbing plates from a cupboard, stopped and turned to look at her son. “I am an adult with a steady job. I think I can work one night of take out into our budget just fine.” She reached up and pulled down a plate, which Stiles took.  


“I guess,” he said doubtfully. “But-”  


“Nope, no more. Get what you want and let’s go sit in the living room.” Mrs. Stilinski followed her own advice, taking two slices out of the cardboard box on the counter and heading out of the room. Stiles rolled his eyes and helped himself, also snagging a can of soda and a handful of paper towels to use as napkins before he went to join his mom on the sofa.  


“So, who lent you the book?” She asked, grabbing one of the paper towels and wiping her mouth with it. “Andy? I know you two used to recommend stories to each other all the time.”  


“Huh?” Stiles swallowed his mouthful of pizza. “No, it wasn’t Andy. I got it from…” he hesitated. He had been about to say ‘another friend’, but was Scott really his friend these days? It was hard to be sure. On the one hand Stiles had to admit that once he looked past the creepiness that had characterized the beginning of their relationship, Scott was a pretty cool guy. He certainly wasn’t the emptyheaded jock Stiles had first taken him for. But on the other hand, there was that phrase from earlier today; “the original Stiles”. That was all he really was to Scott in the end, a replacement for something he’d lost, a second edition that Scott clearly felt didn’t measure up to what he’d had before. With that kind of attitude, could Stiles ever really consider himself Scott’s friend?  


“Stiles?” Mrs. Stilinski snapped her fingers in front of his face. “You’re spacing out on me.”  


“Oh. Sorry.” Stiles took another bite of pizza. “I got it from someone else,” he muttered around it.  


“I was getting that impression.” She looked thoughtful. “By the way, what ever happened with that boy you were telling me about? What was his name, Scout?”  


“Scott,” Stiles corrected her without thinking.  


“That’s right. I know you weren’t getting along for a while there, did that ever change?” Stiles looked at the plate on his lap, not really seeing it. Did they get along? He’d gone to Scott when he needed help this morning, and Scott clearly trusted at least some of his judgement. How much of that was just because of who he expected Stiles to be?  


“You know,” he said finally, “I’m not really sure.”

The next morning Stiles was woken up by the sound of someone ringing the doorbell. He rolled over in bed with a moan, not wanting to leave his warm blankets behind. When the ringing came a second time Stiles briefly entertained the lovely idea that his mom could answer it instead. When he looked at his com to see what time it was and saw 10:34 flashing at him, he remembered that she was out with friends for breakfast this morning. Grumbling under his breath, Stiles hauled himself up and pulled on a plaid shirt over his pajama shirt before making his way down the stairs and opening the door. It took him a moment to process the fact that Ellie was the one standing on his doorstep. Unlike him, she had clearly been awake for a while, as evidenced by the fact that her makeup and hair were perfect and she had that bright, intent look in her eye that Stiles knew heralded an idea that she expected everyone else to go along with.  


“I’ve been thinking,” she announced, stepping past him into the house, her shoes clicking on the tile floor. “That bracelet that you found in the woods.”  


“Good morning to you too,” Stiles said. Ellie gave him a look and Stiles threw up his hands. “All right, fine, whatever, just barge into my house.”  


“I was planning on it. The bracelet?”  


“What about the stupid bracelet?”  


“It’s not stupid,” Ellie said, “It got us into the vault, and that’s how we got Derek out. He, on the other hand, is absolutely sure that there is no possible way that it should have worked that way. I’d say that makes it pretty important, wouldn’t you?”  


“I guess.” Stiles ran his fingers through the back of his hair absently. “What about that is so important it warrants waking me up?”  


“Stiles, it’s already past ten. You should have been awake anyways.”  


“No, I shouldn’t have. I’m a growing boy, I need my rest.”  


“What time did you go to bed?” Ellie asked skeptically. Stiles, with a flash of realization that he probably didn’t want her to know the answer to that question, decided to avoid it instead.  


“Look, can I at least make some coffee before you go off on this?”  


“You can listen and make coffee at the same time,” Ellie said. Stiles groaned and headed for the kitchen. Ellie followed him, still talking as he started up the coffee maker. “The point is, Stiles, that there’s something strange about that bracelet. I agree with Scott, it can’t be a coincidence that all of this is happening. If something big is coming, and that bracelet is in the middle of it, don’t you think we need to know more about it?” Stiles eyed her from where he was getting a mug out of the cupboard.  


“Okay, so let’s say that the bracelet is important to all of that,” he said. “What exactly did you think we were going to do about it? In case you’ve forgotten, it just kind of showed up on the forest floor. That doesn’t give us much to go on.”  


“That’s why I came to you!” Ellie said. “If anyone’s going to come up with an idea for finding out more, it’s going to be us. Don’t play dumb, Stiles, I know you better than that. You’re almost as smart as me when you want to be.”  


“Oh, there’s a compliment.”  


“Considering that I know for a fact that I have the best grades of anyone in our year, yes it is,” Ellie said seriously. Stiles looked at her, honestly surprised.  


“You really think I’m smart?”  


“Don’t go all modest on me.” Ellie sighed and sat down in a chair. “Look, Stiles. Who’s the one who figured out that there was something more to Scott than met the eye? Who’s the one who got the video footage out of my smashed up com and was able to find out what happened to me? Who’s the one who realized something wasn’t adding up and worked out that Scott was older than he was telling us? You, Stiles. And you are the only one that I can think of that I would trust to help me come up with a reasonable plan for finding out more about that bracelet. All right?” Stiles stared at her, mug forgotten in his hand, mouth hanging slightly open. Ellie raised her eyebrows at him and looked pointedly at the coffee maker. “Now are you going to pour yourself some of that so we can get started, or are you just going to stand there?”  


“Oh. Right.” Stiles turned and busied himself with the coffee maker, trying to force the heat in his cheeks to go away. The last thing he needed was for Ellie to see him blushing like an idiot. Although she’d already seen him in his pajamas gaping at her like a complete moron, so there probably wasn’t that much to lose after all. He closed his eyes and forced himself to take a few deep breaths before turning and joining her at the kitchen table.  


“Right,” he said. “So what did you have in mind?”  


“I was thinking,” Ellie said, leaning forward,” That what we really need to do to start out with is know more about the person that the bracelet came from in the first place. Maybe if we have more details about this Malia, and who she was and where she was going when she vanished, it’ll tell us something about how the bracelet could have ended up here.” Stiles considered this.  


“Derek’s the one I’d expect to have that information, and he didn’t really seem to have any idea where she went, aside from the fact that it had something to do with trying to solve Scott’s immortality thing,” he pointed out. “And last time I talked to him about the bracelet thing, he said that he didn’t know what she could have done to it.”  


“All we really know about her is that she was a werecoyote though,” Ellie said. “That’s not a lot of information to start out with. We don’t know if she was the kind of person who’d just leave out of the blue and not tell anyone normally, we don’t know how important the bracelet would have been to her, any of that.” Stiles took a drink of his coffee, considering this.  


“Okay,” he said. “So let’s say we find out more about Malia. Where do we go from there? It’s not like we can get answers from the bracelet itself.” Something about that thought tickled in the back of his brain, as if it were trying to remind him about something he already knew. He was trying to track the thought down when Ellie spoke up again.  


“Then we see if there’s any clues in what we’ve found out, and if there are we go where those lead us.”  


“You realize we might not be able to find out where it came from in the end?” Ellie rolled her eyes.  


“Yes, Stiles, I’m aware of that. That doesn’t mean we can’t try, right?”  


“I guess so.” Stiles levered himself up out of the chair, mug in one hand. “All right, let me get dressed.” He was halfway up the stairs when he realized Ellie was following him up and stopped. “You weren’t planning on watching me change, were you?”  


“Of course not,” she said. “I was going to grab the bracelet so I could look at it.”  


“Oh.” Stiles opened the door to his room and looked around, spotting the silver piece of jewelry on his bedside table. He walked over to it and tossed it over to Ellie. “There. I’ll just be a minute.” She smiled at him and closed the door. Stiles ran a hand through his hair and took a deep breath. Clearly it was going to be a much more interesting day than he’d originally planned.  


Ten minutes later, Stiles had shaved, pulled on a clean T-shirt and jeans, and made at least a cursory attempt at putting his hair in some kind of order. He was standing in the middle of his room, trying to decide if he needed to bring anything with him other than his com. Ellie had probably brought her car, so the fact that he didn’t have one wasn’t really an issue. He stared at his desk. For some reason he kept coming back to thinking about the idea of getting answers from the actual bracelet. It sounded ridiculous, and yet it definitely felt like there was something to the thought. His eyes fell upon the drawer where he’d shoved the bestiary the night before and suddenly everything clicked together. He scrambled over to the desk and pulled the notebook out before rushing over and throwing the door open. Ellie was leaning against the wall, looking at the bracelet in her hand. Her eyes were wide and somehow vacant looking, but when Stiles’ door crashed open she looked up, startled. He waved the notebook at her as he headed for the stairs.  


“I knew there was something I wasn’t remembering,” he said, walking into the kitchen and slamming the notebook on the table. Ellie, a ways behind him, was looking at Stiles like he’d lost his mind. “I got this from Scott,” Stiles said, flipping the notebook open and looking for the page he wanted. “It was written by, uh, someone Scott knew back before he was immortal and stuff. It has things about different kinds of supernatural creatures, and I was looking at it last night and I read this bit.” He stopped at a two-page spread, looking triumphant. Ellie squinted at it skeptically.  


“Banshees?” She said. “What do banshees have to do with anything, Stiles?”  


“You wouldn’t think they’d be relevant, but look at this,” Stiles said. “The person who wrote this notebook actually knew a banshee, Ellie. He talked to her, and he got a pretty good idea of her powers. Listen to this – it says that banshees hear voices that other people can’t, and that sometimes if there’s a lot of power in an object, then the voices can tell the banshee about where the object has been or what it can do.”  


“So you’re saying that if this has enough power, a banshee would be able to tell us something about it?” Ellie held up the bracelet, looking doubtful.  


“Well, it makes sense that it would have power, doesn’t it? I mean, it works to open a super-secret werewolf vault. How could that not have power?” Stiles turned and started pacing. “I mean think about it, what better place to get information then from the object itself, right?”  


“Okay, but there’s one big problem with that plan, Stiles. We don’t know any banshees, remember?” Stiles waved his hands in a short jerky motion by his face.  


“That’s not- look, I’m sure if we told Scott that we needed a banshee, he could help us find one, all right? He definitely knew one, the name’s even in that notebook.” Ellie raised her eyebrows at him and looked down at the pages of writing. “And if he can’t find one now, there’s no way of saying that one won’t just randomly come through Beacon Hills the way things are going, right?”  


“Stiles…”  


“And if that doesn’t happen, then there’s still a possibility that Derek would know something about how to find one.”  


“Stiles!”  


“Not that I really want to talk to Derek but - what?” Stiles turned to look at Ellie. She was staring down at the notebook, her face pale. She reached out a finger to touch something on the page. Stiles walked over and looked over her shoulder. Her fingernail was just underneath a name. Stiles read it out loud.  


“Lydia Martin. That’s the name of the banshee, right?”  


“I don’t know about that,” Ellie said, her voice quiet, “but it’s definitely a name I know.” Stiles looked at her in surprise.  


“Why would you know that? It’s from when Scott was originally our age.”  


“I know,” Ellie said. “Lydia Martin was the maiden name of my grandmother.” Stiles felt his mouth drop open. He waited for a moment, but that didn’t change what he’d heard.  


“Your grandmother?”  


“Yes, all right?” Ellie shook her head impatiently. “But she couldn’t have been a banshee. Someone would have known, right?”  


“I have no idea,” Stile said, looking back down at the page. If Ellie’s grandmother had been a banshee, what did that mean for Ellie herself? “I think,” he said carefully, “that we should go talk to Scott now.”

As it turned out, Derek was the only one in the apartment when they arrived. He just raised his eyebrows at the sight of Stiles and Ellie standing outside of the door, not looking particularly interested in why they were there. In the end, Ellie was the one who spoke up.  


“We wanted to talk to you about Malia,” she said. “If that’s all right.” Derek looked at Stiles, who nodded.  


“Is that all?” Derek said. “Because I can tell you now, if you’re expecting some kind of groundbreaking revelation, you’re looking in the wrong places.”  


“Maybe as far as you’re concerned,” Stiles muttered.  


“What he means,” Ellie said, elbowing him, “Is that to us it will be new, because we don’t really know anything about her other than that she was related to you and she was a werecoyote. We figured you would at least be able to tell us more than that, and…” she trailed off, looking at Stiles uncertainly. He rolled his eyes. He may not like Derek, but he wasn’t about to let Ellie down.  


“We want to know about Lydia,” he said bluntly. Derek looked startled at that, his eyes fixing on Stiles.  


“I thought you didn’t remember anything,” he said, his voice slightly accusatory.  


“If you mean ‘do I remember things from 100 years ago’, then the answer is that I don’t,” Stiles snapped, irritated. “I’m pretty sure that I’ve made that clear by now. The point is that I was reading up on things, and there was this notebook that Scott gave me, and it mentioned a Lydia Martin.”  


“That was my grandmother’s maiden name,” Ellie put in, looking between the two a little nervously. “It said she was a banshee, and Stiles seems to think that a banshee could tell us more about the bracelet…” She stopped again, looking a little intimidated. Derek was still staring at Stiles intently. Stiles just folded his arms and matched Derek look for look.  


“Those are two very different questions,” Derek said at last, still not breaking his gaze. “You might as well come in.” He stood aside. Ellie and Stiles followed him into the living room. Derek chose a chair and sat with his arms crossed in front of him. Stiles sat on the couch facing him, and Ellie perched nervously next to him. The werewolf continued looking at Stiles for a long moment.  


“So where do you want me to start?” He finally asked. “Malia or Lydia?”  


“Malia,” Ellie said quickly. Stiles shrugged. Derek looked up at the ceiling for a minute and then sighed.  


“The main thing that you need to know about Malia,” he said, “Is that it took her a while to get the hang of humans. There are some werewolves – you two saw me do this, so you’ve probably already guessed – that can turn into full wolves. That’s not at all a common trait. Malia did have the ability to turn into a full coyote, but she didn’t get control of it for quite a while. When she was nine, she changed into a coyote, but instead of changing back, she lived like that for eight years.”  


“Wait, she just started living as a wild animal?” Stiles said, leaning forward.  


“Her mom and sister died,” Derek said. “She thought that she was guilty for their deaths, and it was easier for her to run away from that kind of problem. So, yes, she lived in the wild for eight years. It wasn’t until Scott found her and forced her to turn back into a human that anyone even knew she was still alive. Malia wasn’t too thrilled with Scott, mind you. She’d enjoyed being a coyote, and finding herself thrust back into being human was definitely not an easy experience for her.”  


“So that’s why the coyote charm on the bracelet,” Ellie said.  


“Her first boyfriend gave that to her,” Derek said. “He was the one who really helped her learn how to act like other people. After she joined the pack, Scott’s the one who taught her about using her powers, but he couldn’t cover that and everything else she needed to know.”  


“Was her boyfriend a werewolf too?” Ellie asked. Derek’s eyes flickered back to Stiles.  


“No, he was very much human. I think that was good for her though, at least at first. He helped her get mostly up to speed academically and she graduated with him and the others. Then she was going to community college in the area for a while. It was only after it became clear that things with Scott weren’t going to fix themselves that she started working with me to figure out what had happened.” Ellie had lost her nervousness and now looked fascinated. Stiles was fascinated too, despite his dislike of Derek.  


“Did she still have the bracelet when she left?”  


“Yes. She never took it off, really. Even after she and her boyfriend broke up, it was a reminder to her about her past that was very important to her.”  


“So she probably wouldn’t have given it to someone else willingly,” Stiles concluded. “Which means that whoever brought the bracelet here probably got it from her after she died.” He tugged on one of his earlobes absentmindedly. “Not very helpful if we want to know how it ended up in the preserve.” Ellie tapped her lips with one finger, clearly thinking. Stiles, who was still caught on the idea of getting information straight from the bracelet, looked back at Derek.  


“What about Lydia?” he asked, right as the door opened and Scott came into the apartment. Stiles looked over at him and found the alpha staring at him, his eyes so hopeful and disbelieving that they made Stiles want to leave the room.  


“Why are you talking about Lydia?” Scott asked. Stiles was grateful when Ellie was the one who jumped in to answer. He couldn’t think of anything to say in the face of that much emotion.  


“Stiles found the name in that notebook you gave him,” she said. “I didn’t know that you knew her. She was my dad’s mom.”  


“Oh,” Scott said, his face visibly falling. “Right, I forgot that you’re Lydia’s granddaughter.”  


“So you did know her,” Stiles said.  


“Yeah.” Scott walked into the room and sat down. “Lydia was part of my pack for a long time. We stayed friends for years, even after she moved out of Beacon Hills.”  


“You can have people in your pack even if they’re not werewolves?” Ellie said.  


“It’s not entirely usual,” Derek said. “In rare cases, when a human gets bit by an alpha, it doesn’t turn them into a werewolf. Instead it unlocks some kind of potential inside of them. In Lydia’s case, her own grandmother had been a banshee, and when she was bitten it awoke that same power in her.”  


“It took her quite a while to get a hold on her powers though. None of us were exactly sure what banshees could do, except maybe Peter, and he was never the best source for information,” Scott said with a frown. “She was hearing things no one else could hear and often would just end up trying to trust her hunches and go where they led her. A large amount of the time they led her to dead bodies.”  


“It said in the notebook that banshees could get information from an object if it had enough power,” Stiles said, leaning forward. “Could she do that?”  


“Yes and no,” Scott said. “If you just handed her any ordinary object, she wouldn’t be able to tell you much. Being a banshee isn’t the same as being psychic. In cases where an object has something inside of it though, like in cases where memories are stored in something, then yes, she could get those out.”  


“You can store memories in things?” Ellie asked.  


“It’s complicated, but yes, were wolves can manipulate memories,” Scott said. “Derek would really know more about it-”  


“You’ve done it more times than I have,” Derek pointed out.  


“Yes, but you learned about it from Peter.”  


“As much as Peter told anyone his secrets you mean?”  


“So basically what you’re saying,” Stiles interrupted, “is that unless Malia put some of her memories in the bracelet, a banshee wouldn’t be able to tell us anything about it anyway?” The werewolves looked at him and then at each other.  


“I don’t know,” Scott admitted at last. “Derek and I did talk about it a bit, and there must be some kind of power in the bracelet to let it open the vault, but we don’t have any ideas about what kind of power it could be.”  


“Fantastic,” Stiles muttered, flopping back into the couch.  


“For now, keep it safe,” Derek said. “It may be important, but there’s no way of knowing yet.”  


“So there’s nothing we can do to find out more about it?” Ellie asked.  


“We don’t have Lydia, so we can’t know if she’d be able to sense anything,” Scott pointed out. “And we don’t know where Malia went, although it’s possible that we could recreate Derek’s original list of leads to get a better idea of that. For now we’ll just have to leave it where it is.”

Stiles opened the door to his house to find his mom sitting on the couch in the living room flipping through a magazine. She looked up at him and raised her eyebrows.  


“Where have you been?”  


“With Ellie,” he said, coming in and leaning on the back of a chair. “How was breakfast?”  


“It was all right,” she said. “Marlene couldn’t make it though. Her aunt’s gone missing, apparently. The police think it’s probably related to those other disappearances in the area.” Stiles blinked.  


“What disappearances? I haven’t heard anything about this.” His mom sighed and closed her magazine.  


“They haven’t made it public yet for the most part, they don’t want people to panic. Apparently there’ve been four people who have gone missing in the past week. I guess Marlene’s aunt makes five. They’re probably going to put out a statement soon though, they can’t keep it a secret for much longer.”  


“There’s no clues at all as to what happened to them?” Stiles asked, his mind whirring.  


“None that anyone I know has heard of,” his mom said. She leveled a look at him. “Stiles, I know you. I don’t want you to go playing detective and get yourself into some kind of trouble, all right?”  


“I’m not going to get in trouble,” Stiles said absently.  


“Stiles…”  


“Don’t worry so much, mom. I’m going to be fine.” He walked around and kissed her on the forehead. “I’m going to head up to my room.” She sighed.  


“Stiles, I swear, if I get a call from the police station, I’m taking your com away for a month.” He just waved at her as he headed towards the stairs, already thinking hard. If he could convince Scott to get involved, the alpha could probably track one of the people who was missing and figure out where they were. That wouldn’t actually be too hard to accomplish if he could find out where Marlene’s aunt lived. On the other hand, if there wasn’t anything obviously supernatural about the people vanishing, then would Scott even be willing to get involved? Was it better to take the more mundane routes first? Reaching the top of the stair, Stiles walked into his room, shut the door behind himself, and flung himself into his desk chair, poking at his com as he did. The holo-screen popped up, showing the homepage of the sheriff’s website.  


“Now if I can just get into the database…” Stiles narrowed his eyes at the screen. The sheriff’s department in Beacon Hills had made their internet security into a point of pride. This was enough to discourage many amateurs, but Stiles liked to consider such things as challenges to his abilities. It took an hour and a half for Stiles to be looking at the profiles of all five people who were missing along with brief descriptions of what the police knew so far. He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms with a frown. The five faces looked back at him. Marlene’s aunt he recognized. The rest were a mixed bag; an older man who Stiles saw sitting in the park sometimes, a young woman with brilliant blue hair, a man with the most impressive moustache Stiles could ever remember seeing, and a bored looking man in a construction uniform. Seemingly a completely random collection of people, with nothing in common except the fact that they were missing. Stiles knew how this kind of thing usually worked though. There had to be some kind of thing they had in common, something that linked them all together. The problem was, he couldn’t see anything. Each person had gone out to do something seemingly normal – walk the dog, go for a run, pick up groceries – and then simply not come back.  


Stiles sighed and stood up from his chair, pacing in little circles as he thought. It was possible that they were all just randomly selected people. If that was the case though, he’d expect to see something similar in location, or at least in the sort of activity the people had been doing. The only one that had even been seen between when she left her house and when she failed to come back was the blue haired woman, Lucy Jacobs. She’d been expected to meet up with her friends at a restaurant that evening and had left early. There was one witness who said that he’d seen her riding her bike on the road to the preserve about twenty minutes before she’d failed to show up when and where she’d been supposed to.  


“Well, I guess it’s a better place to start than no place at all,” Stiles sighed as he reached for his com and closed out the profiles so he could make a call.  


“Stiles?” Andy’s face popped up on his holo-screen. “What’s up?” Stiles grinned and leaned back in his chair.  


“What would you say if I told you I wanted to investigate some disappearances in Beacon Hills?” Andy looked pained.  


“I’d ask if that’s the sort of thing you’re likely to tell me, but I know you well enough to know that yes, it is exactly the sort of thing you’re likely to tell me. Who is it?”  


“My mom’s friend’s aunt for one,” Stiles said. “There’s five in all at this point. No real connection that I could see from the reports so far.”  


“How did you get – no, I don’t want to know. Stiles, you do realize that we’re teenagers, right? Not police officers? We could just go do normal things every once in a while.” Stiles shook his head.  


“Andy, if I listened to you every time you pointed out that we shouldn’t be doing something, we’d have a lot less fun,” he said, jabbing a finger towards the screen to emphasize his point. “Now are you coming or not?” Andy pursed her lips before letting all of her breath out in an explosive sigh.  


“Fine. What’s the plan?”  


“There’s not a lot to go off of, but there was a sighting of one of the victims heading towards the preserve before she vanished,” Stiles said. “Like I said, there’s no real connections, so I figure searching there’s our best bet for now.”  


“I’m guessing that it’s already been searched,” Andy pointed out.  


“Still worth a shot,” Stiles said, stretching his arms over his head. “Meet at my place?” Andy tilted her head in thought.  


“Wait. Did you tell any of the others about this?” Stiles squirmed a little in his chair, trying to ignore the guilt that was trying to make itself known.  


“Not exactly.”  


“Stiles…” Andy’s voice made it clear that she wasn’t going to let him off the hook. Sometimes he wished that she didn’t know him quite as well as she did. She was a good friend, but it was annoying how she always managed to call his bluff.  


“Okay, fine, not at all.” He waved a hand. “Come on, Andy, it’s not like this is an ogre in the woods situation, all right? I doubt we’re going to need the werewolf backup. We’re just going to go see if there’s any clues, and like you said, the police probably already searched it anyway.” Andy didn’t look happy, but she sounded resigned when she answered.  


“You’re going whether I’m there or not, aren’t you?” She asked, continuing without waiting for an answer. “All right, I’ll be there soon.”

“...So basically we found out that Ellie’s grandmother was friends with Scott, and apparently also a banshee,” Stiles said, leading the way through the trees, Andy close behind. “Which isn’t actually that helpful when you think about it.”  


“It’s interesting at least,” Andy said. “I’d like to see that notebook sometime.”  


“I can show you when we get back,” Stiles said, pushing a branch out of his path. “The bestiary too, if you want.” Andy made a noncommittal noise.  


“It sounds like you’re at least getting along better with Scott,” she said, changing the subject. “I’m glad.” Stiles made a face.  


“I don’t know if I’d call it getting along,” he said. Andy moved so that she was walking next to him, giving him a quizzical look.  


“What do you mean?” Stiles shrugged. It was hard to articulate exactly how he was feeling about Scott. It was like annoyance, jealousy, and hurt had all gotten smashed together into one epically uncomfortable feeling that was trying to take him over. He had to give Andy some kind of an answer though.  


“I don’t know,” he said at last. “It’s just weird. Half the time it’s like Scott expects me to be the person he lost all those years ago, and it’s like he’s disappointed when I do something different than what he assumes I should. The other half I feel like maybe he’s someone I could actually be friends with, but it’s hard to tell whether that’s what he wants or not.”  


“He seems to have been working pretty hard to be your friend,” Andy pointed out. “I’m not sure how much clearer he could have made it.” Stiles turned to face her, walking backwards as he gestured with his hands.  


“How am I supposed to take it when he talks about the original Stiles then?” He demanded. “Either he needs to accept that I’m not the same person, or-” Stiles broke off as his back hit something hard and his breath was knocked out of him. He bent forward, a hand going to his back as he gasped with pain. “Son of a…”  


“Stiles, are you okay?” Andy hurried forward, hands held out towards him, and then froze. Stiles glanced up at her. She was staring at something over his shoulder, her mouth open and her eyes wide. Stiles, alarmed by her pale face, turned to look over his shoulder, only to find himself staring as well. He hadn’t run into anything natural. Instead, he’d run into what looked like a stone statue of a woman, her face frozen in a look of fear. Behind her and a little to the left, he could just make out what looked like another stony arm sticking out from behind a tree. Stiles carefully straightened up, wincing as his back protested, and walked over. The arm was revealed to be connected to another statue. This one looked just as scared, and it was a face he recognized; the young woman with the bright blue hair who had been in the police reports. He somehow managed to suppress his instant reaction, which was to scream at the top of his lungs, and stumbled a few involuntary steps backwards, his hands spread in front of him.  


“Okay,” he said carefully, eyes fixed on the statue. “Now might be a good time for that werewolf backup.”

“These definitely look like the same person,” Scott admitted, looking from the statue to the picture of the missing woman that Stiles had pulled up and back again. Stiles had been oddly relieved to find both him and Derek in the apartment when he and Andy had showed up. Both werewolves had allowed themselves to be dragged out into the forest, and any reluctance they may have had vanished when they’d seen the statues for themselves. Scott was currently bent over, peering into the face of the second statue.  


“Scott,” Derek said from somewhere behind them. Stiles and Scott both glanced over their shoulders towards his voice. He was several feet away from them, looking down towards the ground.  


“Find something?” Scott asked, straightening up. Derek looked up and back at them.  


“I think you’ll want to see this,” he said. Stiles looked over at Scott, who was already moving towards the other werewolf. Andy, who was standing off to one side, caught his eye and shrugged. They both moved over to where the other two were both staring down at the ground. It was immediately clear why. Lying on one side was another statue, this time of a man. Andy shrank back from it. Stiles resisted the urge to do the same, forcing himself to look more closely.  


“Hang on,” he said. “I think this is another one of the people who went missing.” He flicked through the profiles of the missing on his com until he came to the right one. “He was one of the first ones, just over a week ago.”  


“So this is definitely related,” Derek concluded. “Which means that the others are around here somewhere too.”  


“And so is whatever did this to them,” Scott added quietly. Andy shivered slightly, wrapping her arms closely around herself. Stiles peered into her eyes.  


“You okay?”  


“I’m fine,” she said, flashing him a quick smile. “Any ideas what could have done this, Scott?”  


“I haven’t seen it before,” Scott admitted. “It feels familiar somehow though, like I’ve read about it before.”  


“Medusa?” Derek offered. Scott snapped his fingers.  


“That’s it.” He looked over at Stiles. “You know that myth, right?” Stiles, who had been trying to avoid the gazes of the statues nearest him, looked up.  


“Uh. It sounds familiar but I’m not sure. Hang on…” He pulled up a screen on his com and typed in a quick search. A picture of a woman with snakes for hair popped up and Stiles found himself flinching backwards away from it. “Holy crap, that’s a look.” Andy was leaning forward, reading the text underneath.  


“It says here that she was a gorgon in Greek mythology. What’s a gorgon?”  


“If it involves this many snakes I’m already not a fan,” Stiles muttered. He had a feeling he’d seen something in the bestiary about them, but hadn’t read very much of the information for that very reason. He rubbed his arms to try and warm them up. The mention of snakes seemed to have sent chills through his whole body.  


“That gives us a place to start.” Derek straightened up. “In the meantime, it’s not safe to be out here. We should…” he stopped and sniffed the air. “What’s that smell?” Scott turned, looking confused. Stiles was about to comment that he didn’t smell anything when he heard a rustling sound in the bushes behind him. He turned around in time to see something large and scaly leap out of them. He caught a glimpse of glowing yellow eyes fixed on him before his world went completely blank.


End file.
